Quotes from Bernie Glassman

Our tendency in life is to avoid things that frighten us. But in order to become whole, we need to go deeper and deeper into ourselves by reaching further and further into the things we fear.

People get stuck a lot because they're afraid to act; in the worst case,...we get so attached to some end result that we can't function. We need help just to move on, only life doesn't wait.

The basic problem, actually, is how to get rid of the idea that we're going to get rid of our problems. Only then can we relate directly with the real issues of our life.

When we go... to bear witness to life on the streets, we're offering ourselves. Not blankets, not food, not clothes, just ourselves.

People get stuck a lot because they're afraid to act; in the worst case,...we get so attached to some end result that we can't function. We need help just to move on, only life doesn't wait.

Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning...look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.

The more you learn, the more you know that you're not so hot.

We freeze up because we expect a certain result or because we want things to be perfect.

Covorul ?la lumina toat? camera, nu-i a?a?

ÃŽmi savurez cafeaua

Our actions—whether they make peace or war—reverberate throughout this universe.

As soon as you create something you create a boundary.

In honoring our diversity, we discovered our oneness. By accepting our differences, we came together as one people.

Zazen is the elimination of distance between subject and object.

Koan study is traditionally practiced in face-to-face encounters between student and teacher and requires an experiential, rather than an intellectual, grasp of the material.

We often think that to be spiritual or enlightened we need to have some special experiences, just as we think that in order to make a great meal or become a master chef we need special ingredients and a fancy kitchen. But all we have to do to make a meal is put all the pots and pans and ingredients in their proper places. And all we have to do to be in touch with our spirituality is to let the mind settle itself, like a cloudy glass of city tap water.

Three Treasures: the Buddha, which refers to the world of oneness; the Dharma, which is the world of form; and the Sangha, or the relationship that says the two are really the same thing. We begin such study the simple way, by seeing the world of oneness, of emptiness.

The thing we have in common is our diversity.

We yearn to find things that are common to all human beings, around which we can come together. But underlying that yearning is the desire for people to be the same, to be the same as us, to affirm our way of seeing things. And that's the trap.

Adolf Hitler had also wanted a one-people event. His way of doing it was to eliminate diversity. He created hundreds of places like Auschwitz and Birkenau where he could destroy diversity and create one people who looked the same, thought the same, lived the same. But he couldn't do it. Because the one thing we ultimately have in common is that we're all different.

Bearing witness is not something to be done only at Auschwitz. When we bear witness to the unfolding of our daily lives, not shrinking from any situation that arises, we learn. We open to what is. And in that process, a healing arises.

Our work may be important, but we don't take it too seriously. Otherwise, we get attached to one relatively small thing and ignore the rest of life.

Take the selfishness out of anger and you're left with determination.

An English philosopher said that whatever is cosmic is also comic. Do the best you can and don't take it so seriously.